The document discusses best practices for managing the transition from an old system to a new system. It recommends clearly defining requirements upfront and limiting change requests. It also stresses the importance of data profiling, migration strategy, deliverables sign-off, reconciliation with actuaries, dedicated migration testing, transitional measures, attention to changed processes, and managing the human impact of change. Following these practices can help make the migration road less bumpy.

1. Something Old
Something New
And The Road Between
Stephan Podevyn
Comarch Conference
18.09.2015

2. Often a bumpy road
Between old and new
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Old
system
1
Old
system
2
Old
system
3
New system
Expectation
Reality

3. Referring to no-one in particular ...
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4. Make sure
 Your (business & other) requirements are no
moving target – however: Pareto!
 You have an upfront detailed description of
the most important fits and the gaps between
requirements and future solution.
 You install a strong governance around
change requests.
Change Requests: limit & embrace
Starting point: robust requirements
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5. Are you going to
 Profile & clean data before migration?
 Migrate with a big bang or iteratively?
 Migrate historic data?
 Migrate all data automatically?
 Use a dedicated migration tool?
 Accept defects after migration?
Nail down the main principles of your migration project
Migration deserves a strategy
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6. Install a formal review & sign-off process of deliverables
Deliverables: carve them in stone!
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Such a process
 Should contain regular intervals and strict
timings.
 Installs discipline in the producers of the
deliverables.
 Keeps your main stakeholders actively
involved in and aware of project content.
 Provides a constant flow of material with
which the technology partner can work.

7. Make sure you have the same in your wallet and your clients pay the same
before and after migration
Reconcile with the actuaries
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Involve (busy!) actuaries sufficiently in
 Outlining the approach of reconciling
reserves and premiums.
 Indicating clearly which premiums & reserves
to reconcile and at which date.
 Drafting a list of data fields to reconcile,
allowing root cause analysis of differences.
 Defining clear acceptation criteria and
tolerance levels.

8. Dedicate time & effort to migration-specific testing
There is more than UAT
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Migration-specific testing
 Checks business consistency of ETL’ed data.
 Focuses on critical data & functionalities.
 Allows to quickly detect & remediate defects.
 Includes certification, static & dynamic testing.
 Benefits from a dedicated environment & a
specific tracking & reporting tool.

9. Transitional measures help avoid complexity in the actual migration
Facilitating the transition
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Transitional measures
 Comprise activities to be executed before
AND after migration.
 Remove complexity from the actual migration.
 Often involve communications with
intermediaries and clients.
 Have to be planned and allocated well in
advance of the actual migration.

10. Don’t forget processes and procedures
Migration is not only about data
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Pay enough attention to
 Changed – even if only slightly – processes
and procedures.
 Documents produced by the new system.
 Reports produced by the new system.

11. Even the most technical migration has an important human impact!
“Nothing human is alien to me”
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12. … but getting some things right will make the migration road less bumpy
OK, not yet a straight line ...
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Old
system
1
Old
system
2
Old
system
3
New system
Getting it right:
• Requirements
• Strategy
• Deliverables
• Reconciliation
• Testing
• Transitional measures
• Processes & procedures
• Change

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QUESTIONS?

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Stephan Podevyn
Project Manager
Margaretha van Oostenrijkplein 19/7
1083 Brussel | Belgium
T +32 (0)496 57 10 49
Stephan.podevyn@ensur.biz
info@ensur.biz
Contact